A journey down the rabbit hole of Rubik's-style puzzles

I’m not sure what compelled me to try, but, a couple months ago, before I had really ventured into PLLs, I decided to learn the Na Perm. It drove me crazy trying to master an algorithm that long, with a couple awkward (at the time at least) D moves to boot. It turns out the execution is really kind of elegant in a way that feels like the Sidewinder OLL (in that you sort of follow a F2L pair around around the cube).

Feeling frisky, I next turned to the Nb analogue. No dice. The most common Nb algorithm seems to be (R’ U L’ U2 R U’ L)2 U. But L turns are like kryptonite to me. Although you can develop a decent flow with that algorithm, the juggling back and forth from the left side to the right drove me nuts. Nb would have to wait.

Wait no longer. With the PLL headboard now reasonably notched — with nothing but Nb and G Perms left to learn — I decided last week that it was time. I played with the various Nb algorithms on the PLL wiki, and finally settled on this one, a sort of funhouse mirror of the Na Perm: (z) 2x[ (D’ R U’ R2′) D (R’ U) ] R (z’).

Here’s a video of both:

I tried a new angle, which I like. But, given the low light, I opened the aperture quite a bit causing a very short depth of field. Unfortunately, I front-focused a bit, putting my arm hair in better focus than the cubes! Sorry.

One of the more confusing parts of these perms was how to set them up. I tried to emphasize in the videos where the 2×1 blocks go (which ones match the face, and which ones are opposite the face). Here’s a summary: